Please note, I am not a professional
HVAC technician. This guide is for meant for illustrative purposes only. I
assume no responsibility for any damage or injury to your property, persons,
or pets. Capacitors can carry high voltage that may cause injury or death
even with the power supply turned off. If you have any doubts, please do not
proceed and consult with a certified air conditioning repair person or the
manufacturer of your A/C system.

This home
maintenance guide was specifically written to assist owners of the
Goodman brand A/C condenser model # GSC130361FA in replacing a
faulty dual run capacitor.

Owners of other similar HVAC condenser
units from manufacturers such as Gibson, Rheem, Trane, GE (General
Electric), Mars, Carrier,
York, Lennox, Frigidaire, Kenmore, Mitsubishi, Maytag, and Whirlpool
may also find this guide to be helpful.

The most obvious sign of a dual run
capacitor that needs to be replaced is that the A/C air handler
inside your home will only blow room temperature air out of the
vents or "registers".

Another symptom of a faulty dual run
capacitor is that both the condenser's fan and compressor components
will not start working. You may instead just hear a faint electrical
humming sound.

Usually, the condenser fan motor can be manually
started up by spinning it with a small stick.

The first steps are
to turn off the A/C system at the thermostat, turn off the breaker switches
for the system in the home's breaker box, and turn off the power breaker
switches at both the indoor air handler and outside by the condenser unit.

If you have a
GE Mars or
Rheem A/C system, you may be better served by my capacitor replacement
guides for those two specific manufacturers. Click on the blue links in the
previous sentence to visit the pages.

Below the access
panel, you'll be able to see the relay unit and the round dual run
capacitor, which appears similar to a large battery.

Be careful!
The capacitor and other components may still contain dangerous voltage and
could cause an electrical shock if touched with bare hands or metal tools.

There are several common methods for discharging the dangerous voltage
stored in a dual run capacitor.

They include using a rubber handled
screwdriver to short all of the terminals (possibly dangerous), using a
resistor attached to insulated wire leads (safest), and using a motor/bulb
or other electrical device attached to wires.

However you choose
to discharge the capacitor, be sure to double check it with a multimeter
tester to ensure that there is no longer any power stored in it before
touching the capacitor with your hands. It's also a good idea to wear thick
rubber gloves when handling an A/C capacitor and always avoid touching the
terminals at the top.

If your dual run
capacitoris bulging, has swollen sides or is leaking a greasy and/or oily
substance, it may already be discharged and definitely needs to be replaced.
Avoid touching the greasy gel or oily liquid leaking from the capacitor
since some older capacitors were manufactured with carcinogenic (cancer
causing) chemicals known as PCBs.

Once the capacitor is discharged, you can
safely pull off the wires from the terminals using rubber handled needle
nose pliers or rubber glove covered hands. Take note of which colored wires
attach to which terminal.

There are three terminals on a dual run
capacitor. The terminals are usually marked with the following symbols - "C"
(common), "F" (fan), and "HERM" (hermetic compressor). You can also
sometimes differentiate the terminals by the number of connection points
they have. The "C" (common) terminal usually has four, the "HERM"
(compressor) usually has three, and the "F" (fan) terminal has only one or
two.

On this Goodman GSC130361FA condenser, the
"C" Common terminal of the dual run capacitor was attached to the red (RD)
and purple (PU) wire. The "F" FAN terminal was connected to the brown (BR)
wire and the HERM compressor terminal was attached to the yellow (YL) wire.

I took several
close up photos of the information on the back of the condenser's electrical
access panel just in case the electrical schematics, wire color codes,
wiring codes, and component codes paper inside your condenser is worn away
or missing.

The old capacitor is held in place by a
single metal strap secured with a single flathead screw. Hold the base of
the capacitor with one hand while loosening the screw until it can easily
slipped out of the band.

A replacement capacitorcan be purchased at
a variety of places such as an appliance parts supply warehouse, an HVAC parts wholesale store, online
retail websites such as Amazon, or you might be able to buy one at a premium price from
your local A/C repair company.

It's best to take the old part with you when
you guy to buy the new one to ensure that you purchase a replacement
capacitor with the correct microfarads and voltage rating.

A new capacitor,
depending on the type, could range in price from about $10 to around $40
with the most common price being between between $25 and $30.

If the only suitable replacement capacitor
available is oval instead of round, or round instead of oval, it will still
work fine. You may just need to adjust the metal retaining strap or find a
different way to securely mount the capacitor.

To finish the job,
slide the new dual run capacitor under the metal retaining band and tighten
the single flathead screw. Then attach the color coded wires onto the proper
terminals by pushing the female wire connectors straight down on to the
metal blades.

Double check that all of
the wires are securely plugged into the proper places on top of the new dual
run capacitor before re-attaching the electrical access panel and tightening
the two flathead screws.

Turn on the condenser's power breaker switch
outside, flip on the HVAC power breaker switches inside the house, turn on
the air handler's breaker switch (if you turned it off), and turn on the A/C
system at the thermostat.

You should hear the condenser's compressor
motor click on and the fan motor start spinning. Then shortly afterward, the
air handler should begin blowing cool air through the home's A/C vents.

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